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TrustPower’s goal is to minimise the adverse environmental impact of each of our 20 generation schemes.
The Company currently operates 19 hydro schemes and 1 wind farm. The majority of our hydro schemes operate from lakes with some being operated as run of river schemes. Over 80% of the storage is contained in the five largest lakes which have an approximate storage of 2.8 billion cubic metres and cover a combined area of approximately 6,828 hectares. During an average year approximately 39.5 billion litres of water pass through these five schemes and is returned to the existing natural waterways.
Each of the schemes operates under a Resource Consent. These consents contain conditions that were established following an extensive consultative and regulatory review process. TrustPower’s key measure of environmental sustainability is compliance with these consents.
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AVOIDING NON-COMPLIANCE EVENTS
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TrustPower’s goal is to have zero non compliance events. Currently TrustPower holds 462 Resource Consents made up of 2,769 conditions with which TrustPower must comply. These numbers have increased by 124 and 1,032 respectively in the 3 years ending November 2007.
Last year TrustPower undertook a review of its compliance record and monitoring system. This review resulted in the implementation of a number of initiatives to improve the non compliance record for this year. This year further on site training has been undertaken to keep the profile of non compliance in the forefront of plant operators’ minds during their daily operations. As a result of implementing a number of these initiatives TrustPower’s non compliance events dropped from 15 last year to 8 for the current year.
No enforcement action was taken against TrustPower in the year.
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MANAGING CONTAMINANT RELEASES
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The term ‘contaminant release’ refers to the uncontrolled or accidental release of a hazardous substance. Three contaminant releases occurred in the year. All were minor in nature and none resulted in any adverse environmental effects.
On all occasions the events were notified and dealt with appropriately in conjunction with territorial authorities.
In March 2008 TrustPower combined with Environment Bay of Plenty (‘EBOP’) staff in a joint training exercise which utilised the experience and equipment of the regional council Pollution Prevention Team. This training was extremely beneficial for both regional council and TrustPower staff. The exercise was scenario based and focused on assessment of an emergency situation and site selection for and the deployment of equipment.
This scenario also allowed TrustPower staff to follow the contaminant release management procedure contained in its Environmental Management System.
Following the training, TrustPower staff offer their assistance wherever possible in the event of an oil spill in the region.
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COMPLIANCE AND HAZARDOUS SUBSTANCES TRAINING
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Training and education of TrustPower staff is vital in reducing non compliance and contaminant release events. Following on from 2007 further training was provided to all TrustPower site staff. While the main objective of this training was to avoid non compliance and contaminant release events, it included a focus on the procedures and appropriate response to such events.
This training was also used to ensure good lines of communication were maintained between site staff and those based in Tauranga with the objective of continuously improving TrustPower’s compliance record. This training gave site staff an opportunity to comment on any areas they believed could be improved.
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RECONSENTING
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Resource consents to operate and maintain four of TrustPower’s hydro generation schemes, Patea, Matahina, Wahapo and McKays / Kaniere Forks, are due to expire in the next two years.
To enable the continued operation and maintenance of each of these schemes, applications for replacement resource consents need to be lodged with the appropriate regional and district authorities. Assessments, investigations and initial consultation processes commenced during 2006. Applications for resource consents for the Patea scheme were lodged in November 2007. Resource consent applications for the remaining schemes are to be lodged in August 2008 (Wahapo), April 2009 (Matahina) and October 2010 (McKays / Kaniere Forks) respectively. Investigations and consultation for these applications will continue this year in preparation for lodgement.
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PLANNING
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Because TrustPower has assets located throughout New Zealand, and a number of new development applications currently in the consenting process, TrustPower maintains an involvement with most of New Zealand’s district and regional planning processes. TrustPower monitors 63 councils throughout New Zealand and is involved at a national government policy level providing comments to assist with discussion documents, strategies, National Environmental Standards and National Policy Statements.
The planning workload has been increasing over the past year to the point where it is currently higher than ever before and continuing to increase. Over the last year the most notable planning outcomes were:
- Resolving all outstanding issues involving the West Coast Water Plan without needing to go to the Environment Court.
- Achieving controlled activity status for the reconsenting of some of our existing assets.
- Presenting evidence at the Environment Waikato variation 6 water allocation hearing, for which a decision is expected in mid 2008.
- Several of the amendments suggested by TrustPower were recorded in the updated New Zealand Energy Strategy.
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NEW DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS
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The current year has again seen a significant focus on new generation projects. A summary of these follow:
- The Mahinerangi Wind Farm was granted resource consents which were subsequently appealed to the Environment Court. The Environment Court hearing has been completed during May 2008.
- The Kaiwera Downs Wind Farm resource consent hearing commenced in Gore on the 30th of March 2008 and ran for two weeks. A decision is expected to be released in early June 2008.
- The Wairau Valley hydro generation scheme resource consent application process continued during the year with the hearing on the interim consent conditions held in February 2008. The final decision on this hearing is expected to be released mid-2008.
- The proposed Arnold hydro generation scheme had the majority of its application for resource consents heard with the final 2 – 3 days being deferred to mid 2008.
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